The First Chapter, "The Problems and the Sources," states that there
are two classes of problems, "Those concerned with what we may fairly
call the factual basis of our knowledge of the Druids, and those
involved with the unconscious or conscious creation of Druid
idealizations or myths." (p. 3)

He raises the issue of the difficulty of interpreting archaeological
evidence, quoting Margaret Smith, "'To expect an archaeologist to infer
from a hut to chieftainship, or from the tub to Diogenes, is nothing
less than a demand for logical alchemy...It has to be acknowledged that
there is no logical relation between human activity in some of its
aspects and the evidence left for the archaeologist.'" (p.7) He
continues with the point, "As no pre-Christian inscription containing
the word 'Druid' has so far been discovered, any connection between this
body and an archaeological site can only be an unverifiable asumption in
the present state of our knowledge." (p. 8)

He then examines iconographical evidence, mentioning that if a god is
named in an inscription and has identifiable characteristics, such as
horns, then one can attempt to identify similar uninscribed
iconographical remains, though, "It would be rash to call all horned
gods Cernunos, or even perhaps all stag-antlered ones." (p. 10) He adds
that 305 of the 376 Celtic deities named in inscriptions have only a
single inscription and that the name of a Roman god may correspond to
more than one Celtic one, "An extreme example being the sixty-nine
Celtic god-names joined with that of Mars." (p. 10)

Considering the written sources he underlines the difference between
modern Western and Classical worldviews, pointing out that Celtic
divination, ritual and portents would be quite comprehensible to Greeks
and Romans, who also found correspondences in their own pantheons for
Celtic deities. What was objectionable was human sacrifice. Also, a
priestly caste was a foreign concept. (p. 16)

He proceeds to the Classical, "Unacknowledged use of secondary
sources," (p. 17) and the thought that, "Four of the main writers
referring to Celtic religion and the Druids appear to derive in great
part from a single source." (p. 17)

He raises four points about the Irish sources: The original authors,
pre-Christian and non-Classical, lacked, "Any of the self-conscious and
analytical element which in the classical civilized tradition helps us
to an understanding of it," (p. 18) they are old fragments of oral
material, this material has passed through the hands of monks and it is
exlusively related to Ireland, a distinct tradition.

Chapter Two, "The Celtic World of the Druids," begins with further
reference to sources, adding of the later date of the Irish sources, "In
the archaic world of traditional, conserving socities, the discrepency
of date is of no great moment, as the close correspondence so often
apparent between the classical and vernacular literary evidence
demonstrates." (p. 21)

He adds that archaeology confirms a common culture over much of Europe.
"Striking uniformity in many features -- weapon and tool types,
fortification techniques, styles of decoration and of ornaments, burial
modes." (p. 22)

He mentions the pastoralism of the British Isles and the prominence
of hill forts and chariots throughout the Celtic world. He goes on to
refer to, "The practise of individual combat, ritual nakedness in
battle, head-hunting, battle-cries and chants." (p. 30)

The stratified social structure which we find documented by the
classical and vernacular texts is reflected archaeologically in the
presence not only of princely burials with rich offerings accompanying
the dead, but by an aristocratic art of the adornment of the warriors,
their women, their horses and chariots, decorated in an interlocking and
developing series of traditions all united within what has rightly been
called one of the great unclassical arts of Europe. (p. 30)

He moves on to look at the society divided into clans and tribes,
headed by chiefs or kings and sometimes queens, though in Gaul and
Britain with the growing influence of a Council of Elders, with knights,
priests and people and, "Some social mobility." (p. 33) He also refers
to the Irish aes da/na, "Expert craftsmen in things, word and thought,
blacksmiths, and bronze-workers, lawyers and genealogists, poets and
musicians." (p. 33) It is these, "Men of art" (p. 34), travelling
between the tribes who played so vital a role in fostering national
culture. (p. 34)

He next considers Celtic languages (divided into P and Q) and
literacy in pre-Roman times, which may not have been so non-existent as
some think, for besides such things as a name in Greek letters on a
sword (p. 36), "There is presumptive evidence for the importation of
papyrus as a writing material into Britain between the invasions of
Caesar and of Claudius. This clearly would imply conditional literacy
among a learned or merchant class, as do the coin inscriptions
themselves, and the pre-Conquest graffiti in Roman letters on pottery at
Camuledunum (Colchester). (p. 38)

Sanctuaries were largely in forests, and a number of classical
references and archaeological finds indicating actual structures are
mentioned (p. 40ff) with the cautions that often the Classical words
need not necessarily refer to buildings and archaeological
determinations of function, "Can at times be somewhat insecurely based."
(PP 49-50) He does stress the point, "There is no evidence for Celtic
religious observances having been associated with Stonehenge, nor with
any similar monument of the earlier second millennium B.C. " (p. 55)

The Third Chapter begins by considering Classical concepts of hard
and soft, realistic and idealized, primitivism and the possible
confusion of reports on Chinese civilization (vegetarian, unwarlike,
etc.) with the Celts. He mentions that the term "Most just," or "Most
righteous," was commonly ascribed to all noble savages, not just Druids.
(pp. 79-82) The chapter continues by mentioning the great scholar
Posidonius, whose largely lost work was a major source for Strabo,
Diodorus Siculus, Athenaeus and Julius Caesar. (pp. 83-84) Posidonius
had been in Gaul (p. 83) and provides realistic information on such hard
practices as head hunting. (p. 85) In contrast, the Alexandrians offer
soft, "respectful," information derived from libraries emphasizing, "The
alleged connections with the doctrine of Pythagoras, while equations are
made between Druids, Egyptian priests, Persian magi and Indian
brahmins." (p. 86)

Piggott mentions the probable connection of the word druid to the
words "oak" and "to know." (p. 89) He mentions the presence of druids in
the British Isles and Gaul and states that references to Galatia are
ambiguous as they may refer to Gaul. (pp. 89-90) He refers to druids
being perceived not only as priests, but the higher ranks of priests
(pp. 91-92) holding lofty views. (p. 92)

He questions Caesar's assertions of the extent of druidic
organization in Gaul (p. 94) and mentions corraborative evidence for
oral tuition. "Such schools continued in Ireland to the seventeenth and
in Gaelic Scotland to the beginning of the eighteenth century." (p. 96)
He then mentions the functions of druids as fortune-tellers, teachers,
judges (pp. 97-98) and such activities as ritually gathering mistletoe
(pp. 98-99) and conducting sacrifices. (pp. 99-100)

He refers to Classical writings concerning Celtic belief in
re-incarnation and/or eternal life in the Otherworld (p. 102) and to
practical expertise in astronomy and calendars. (p. 104ff) He cites some
triadic statements, as well as the correspondence of one of the earliest
Turkic inscriptions (8th Century C.E.) to Celtic references to the
heavens falling and eathquakes being all that was feared (p. 108), and
he discusses the Roman opposition to the druids, more likely, it seems,
as a suppression of human sacrifice than of a probably anachronistic
national resistence movement. (p. 108ff)

The Fourth Chapter in some 47 pages considers the Renaissance
rediscovery of the druids, influenced both by the Classical sources and
primitivist concepts, hard and soft, connected with American Indians and
other natives encountered by expanding Western Civilization.

He concludes with a ten page epilogue, glancing over European
pre-history, mentioning shamanism (p. 160), Neolithic villages (p. 161),
and later, "Buildings appropriate to the nuclear family of the early
Celtic world." (p. 161) And making clear the hypothetical nature of the
statement he says: "So far as the area later to become Celtic Europe is
concerned, we can do no more than suggest that by the opening of the
second millennium B.C. there could have been speakers of Indo-European
languages already establishing themselves, and that Celtic in some form
could have been one of these. If we make another assumption, we can go
on to add Indo-European social, institutional and religious patterns, if
such can indeed be thought to have existed as a distinctively common
factor before the diaspora." (p. 162)